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It's an interesting ruling. While Steam's lack of support for re-sale of games may run into legal issues, their willingness to keep games available at lower and lower price points as games get older shows that they're not abusing the privilege. If you can wait a while, the price will come down to a reasonable point and the game is available for people who'd have otherwise needed to buy the game used. And I've been delighted to see old games that I've enjoyed, such as the original Doom or Thief or X-com games, be available on Steam. It's helped me avoid having to recover and old games and simply pray that they'd be playable on modern operating systems: I'm very pleased with Steam for making older games available at very reasonable prices. We're actually getting something from them in return for their exclusive licensing.

Also note GOG games are ancient(although I do love them), Steam not only has modern games but massively discounts those games and its DRM is mild. Once youve downloaded the game from steam you can switch to offline mode and never contact steam again. If Valve dies switch to offline mode. Steam also supports independent software developers and charities with humble bundle(I had already bought half the games in the bundle so steam lets me gift the codes to someone else).

The correct wording would be: a german court dismissed a case where the challenger argued the "you may not sell a steam/valve account" clause was unlawfullIn other words:a) neither was the case about selling used games,b) nor was there a court ruling!

This is a decision by a regional court. They universally suck at rulings regarding any technology invented after 1900. A state court recently held a domain registrar responsible [heise.de] for copyright infringement. And nevermind the treasure trove of truly grotesque copyright-related rulings coming out of the city-state of Hamburg - they are legendary here in Germany, similar to patent cases in Texas.

This is bound to be appealed, and our higher courts usually fare better when it comes to dealing with Das Internet.

The matter was litigated all the way to Germany’s highest civil court, the Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof; "BGH"), which dismissed the suit in 2010, finding that while the doctrine of exhaustion limited the rights holders’ powers with regards to an individual DVD, it did not require them to design their business in a way that facilitated the sale of used games and therefore did not make the Steam terms of service unenforceable.

This second suit was prompted by a court case which found that the first sale doctrine ("doctrine of exhaustion") did apply to digital goods. However, it's not surprising this case was dismissed because it is not a question of what rights the consumer has over software they have purchased, it is a matter of what duties the software provider must guarantee to continue providing.

IMHO it is perfectly reasonable that if it is a matter of online support (cost of server maintenance, etc.) that the one-time fee charged to one person does not in turn mean that person can give their support contract to someone else. The one time fee is presumably calculated based on typical use for a single account holder.

But the single-player package should remain fully transferrable.

And as for companies making games require internet connnections they really don't need to abuse the ambiguity here, let's just say I'm not going to cry when they complain about piracy.

I don't know of any jurisidictions that recognize a 'right to dictate' how somebody's contract works; but the existence in contract law of doctrines that limit the scope of what any contract could do are fairly common. In the US, UK, and many UK-derived systems you have 'Unconscionability' [wikipedia.org], for instance. France, Germany, and (to varying extents) the Berne Convention signatories have 'moral rights' that are partially or wholly immune to sale or transfer unlike other elements of copyright. Details vary by lo

Well, since you and the other replier seem so intent on taking my comment out of context I will help you.

Yes, there are things that are excluded from being enforced within a contract. But just because one party of the contract wants things to be different, doesn't mean the other party has to allow it. There can simply be no contract and no license given. They are demanding particular things that some software makers are simply not willing to give and as a consequence taking that denial of license as a right

And, more importanlly, there're people that says you can't change a contract after you paid the bill. If EULAs are contracts, they must adhere to the rules. If EULAs are not contracts, I don't have to comply with it.

There's a misunderstanding here. You _never_ have to comply with a EULA. However, the EULA, especially the letter L = License in it, is what gives you the right to make copies of the software. Like the copy that is installed on your computer, and the copy that is loaded into memory when you run the game. So a EULA that says you can't play the game on fridays you are indirectly forced to comply with it, because without the license you can't play on friday or any other day. If the EULA says that you have to p

So a EULA that says you can't play the game on fridays you are indirectly forced to comply with it, because without the license you can't play on friday or any other day. If the EULA says that you have to pay a $10,000 fine if you play on friday, you don't have to comply because at most you did some copyright infringement.

Problem is when I buy a game those EULA that states I can play the software every day I want, and some months later they change the EULA forbidding me to play on Saturdays.

First, I'm going to operate under the assumption that proprietary software is considered ethical; if you disagree you may have some valid points but we're just going to have to disagree.

With digitally distributed software, the per-unit cost is negligible - the cost to the seller is almost entirely the cost to produce the "first copy". The ideal method of funding games entirely would reflect this fully, but I think it's going to take a while for crowd-funding to reach that level of cultural acceptance. Until

With digitally distributed software, the per-unit cost is negligible - the cost to the seller is almost entirely the cost to produce the "first copy". Well, Im not a marketing drid.But I had guessed otherwise.Asumming I have 10 developers working for two years I get something like 2 million raw development costs.On top of that I have the parasites like management and marketing. So lets hope for the sake of argument this is another 2 millions.Now I want to sell the result via downloads, perhaps on an App Sto

The court didn't "forbid" anything like reselling games. They simply agreed with the EULA stipulation that you're not allowed to transfer ownership of an *account*. This actually makes perfect sense.

The fact that Steam also disallows/lacks the functionality for the transfer (gifting or resale) of used games on Steam, simply means there's a market for other providers to start a platform that would allow sale and resale of games. Of course, they might have some trouble attracting large game publishers, but that's another matter altogether.

That's not the legal situation within the E.U.. The European High Court has actually ruled that it makes no difference if there is a physical medium or not, a sale is a sale, and the First Sale doctrin applies. Thus, lets wait for the appeal. (The article actually mentions the decision about downloaded software, if you are interested, it's UsedSoft vs. Oracle C-128/11.)

Except when a sale is a rental under a lease agreement, which is basically what the Steam EULA is.

The question is not "whether you own something you've bought" but "did you *buy* it, or just agree to a copyright-usage license?"

Pretty much, we know how the answer should go in law (the same way this article says they've gone). Yes, it would be lovely to "own" a game. But you don't. You don't own a movie, or many other things either.

Like the GPL, the law is only going to give one answer, it just takes sever

Except that just because a contract says it's a rental does not make it a rental. I would expect certain terms for something to be considered a rental. In particular I would expect that the longer a person has the object or the mor he uses it, the more he pays.

The European High Court applied the Duck Test [wikipedia.org] on this one, and it found thus: If it is a one term payment and if there is no time limit to the usability, it's a sale, independent on what the contract says, and the First Sale doctrin applies.

Oh and yes, and obviously/. headline is load of bull. In the first case, court hasn't said that resale is forbidden - it has said that Valve isn't obliged to facilitate it. I doubt very much that the second case arguments would be of much different character.

In Germany, if you paid money for it - you bought it. Unlike USA, in Germany, EULA can't override the (consumer protection) law.

It's not clear that this is "consumer protection". If the resales actually lower a company's profits, they are going to raise prices to make up for it. In essence, the EU is forcing some group of users to subsidize another group of users. The same is true for a lot of these other "consumer protection laws".

Funny to hear about that "abandon", esp after in USA, you got shafted of your *own* *pensions*.

10+ years in Germany - and I see no abundance of the alleged behavior. Frankly, I like that I do not have to think about it and can concentrate on my own life. Yes, I do not have to think about it. Welcome to the social state!

Valve has the right? Valve does not. Except now in Germany apparently they do. But in the US they are still skirting around the law and the first sale doctrine by using digital locks. Imagine if you had a physical board game that came with a license forbidding you from playing it outside your home, or from regifting it to someone else. But the fans will step forward and defend Steam over this, thinking it's just another form of copy protection.

Valve has the right? Valve does not. Except now in Germany apparently they do. But in the US they are still skirting around the law and the first sale doctrine by using digital locks. Imagine if you had a physical board game that came with a license forbidding you from playing it outside your home, or from regifting it to someone else. But the fans will step forward and defend Steam over this, thinking it's just another form of copy protection.

That's not the situation here. The court ruling didn't say you can't sell the game. The court ruling said that Valve isn't required to let the person who bought the game use their servers.

Let's say you buy a ticket that gives you unlimited entrance to the zoo for one year. After three months visiting the zoo every weekend, you've had enough of seeing animals. There is nothing that stops you from selling the ticket. There is also nothing that can force the zoo to let anyone else but you into the zoo for f

But the game was sold with a hidden provision disallowing reselling. The fact that servers have to be used is a side effect of their method of restricting buyer's rights.

When you buy that zoo ticket it is stated clearly up front that this ticket is only good for you (though practically speaking they don't check ID, I used to have a zoo pass myself). With Steam it is not so clear, except hidden away in a long EULA. Now maybe it is more clear is most games did this, but in this case most computer games fre

The court 'decission' is about a resale of a downloaded game, the decission is about selling a steam/valve account.And: the court did not rule against the cunsumer or in favour of valve: the court dismissed the case!Huge difference!

Without commenting on the other aspects of that ruling, but that point is moot for games bought on Steam. The Steam EULA IS shown before the purchase.

And in another ruling just one day earlier German couts followed the ruling of the European court that in general, the sale of used software is legal and can't be stopped by EULA. (If it has been bought like a tangible good, the rules for re-sale of tangible goods apply. --> similar to first sale doctrine)

Licenseing is explicitly handled differently, but it has to be clearly noticeable that the underlying contract is a licensing contract and not a sales contract.

In the European Union, if you "buy" a software license online, it is not handled differently. According to the Court of Justice of the EU, the "the downloading of a copy of a computer program and the conclusion of a user licence agreement for that copy form an indivisible whole" (Judgement of 3 July 2012, C128/11, para. 44 [europa.eu]).

Most games on steam are not owned by value. Problem is that most games these days have an online registration which locks up the the key for the game to an account outside valve's control. So to say you can resell your steam games put valve in a pretty nasty spot as for games they can't control that for, well they would have to stop selling these games else face legal issues over it.

I feel that it is a bad ruling. Typically EULAs aren't shown to the user until the purchase has been done. Shit like that should not be tolerated in contract law.

Ignoring the fact that you didn't read or understand the ruling, typical EULAs have to be accepted for the purchase to be completed. Assuming you go to a store the order is either: You hand over the money. You get the DVD. You start the installer. You read and accept the EULA. The contract is done. Then the software gets installed. Or the order is: You hand over the money. You get the DVD. You start the installer. You read and refuse the EULA. You return the DVD to the store. After more or less of a fight,

Ignoring the fact that you didn't read or understand the ruling, typical EULAs have to be accepted for the purchase to be completed. Assuming you go to a store the order is either: You hand over the money. You get the DVD. You start the installer. You read and accept the EULA. The contract is done.

No, not according to German law. German law basically interprets clicking "I accept" as "F*** you, I just want to use the software I already paid for".

You are completely wrong, in europe.In europe the contract happens in the shop. You buy a DVD/CD for money. Thats the contract.You go home and install it, you get asked to accept the EULA.First of all: regardless what you do (usually you click accept, I guess) the EULA is not binding as the contract already happend, see above.Secondly, the EULA is not binding as it usually contradicts european law... as a customer you can not waive your privileges given to you by law in favour for an EULA.

I remember reading an analysis a while back that actually does a bit of economic/game theory on this, and he found that forbidding resale actually has positive benefits for the *consumer*. Part of his analysis was looking at prices between console games, resellable computer games, and games bought via services like Steam. More specifically, he looked at games with online-playing modes that require servers.

What he found is that with resellable games, gaming companies typically only got that 'first bite' and continued play was essentially free through quite a number of customers. Remember that places like gamestop will buy the old games for a song, and sell them for almost as much as a new game.

With games that can't be resold they're able to price the initial game lower, and keep the profit flowing in. It removes places like gamestop from the equation(so they hate it, of course). Consider that I can buy many year old initially $60 games from steam for like $10. Because the game is still being sold, there's still incentive to fix/patch/expand the game.

Roughly speaking, the results were that new game consumers don't pay any more(the new game is slightly cheaper, on average, by about the same amount as what they'd be able to sell it to gamestop for), used game consumers don't pay more, and the studios get more money vs resellers, increasing their profits and encouraging more/bigger games.

With games that can't be resold they're able to price the initial game lower, and keep the profit flowing in. It removes places like gamestop from the equation(so they hate it, of course). Consider that I can buy many year old initially $60 games from steam for like $10. Because the game is still being sold, there's still incentive to fix/patch/expand the game.

But publishers don't lower the initial game price from the goodness of their hearts. New releases on Steam still cost (typically) 50 Euros, that has not changed compared to pre-Steam times. In short, publishers try to charge as much as the market will tolerate and pocket the extra profit.

Now there are a few people like me, who strongly dislike "services" like Steam and will buy less than before (and that preferably from DRM-free sources like GOG). But it seems that we are too few to make a difference.Unless

But publishers don't lower the initial game price from the goodness of their hearts. New releases on Steam still cost (typically) 50 Euros, that has not changed compared to pre-Steam times. In short, publishers try to charge as much as the market will tolerate and pocket the extra profit.

Console titles still tend towards more expensive, at least initially. The initial offer prices are often forced on them because they're forced to match the store price/MSRP. I believe that the big game stores like Gamestop take a higher initial bite than places like steam, plus have rules like 'You can't sell it for cheaper online if it's going to be in our stores!'.

New console games are going for $60-70 today, computer games are closer to $40-50, even less if you take advantage of the many specials.

There are plenty of places to get new games with a discount. Green Man Gaming often offers between 15-25% off on new games through coupons (and that often includes pre-releases and new releases), and they're just one of many. It's very well known that the PC marketplace is significantly cheaper than the console marketplace for the same titles, both at launch and later down the line.

I found it interesting that the only kickstarter game that I backed is having a DRM free version created, due to meeting funding goals, as well as a Linux version, Mac version, etc. This came about because users asked for it, the DRM-free goal was only added after the kickstarter campaign started.

Competition simply doesn't exist in a market where things are under copyright. As there is no compulsory licensing model for software, it's not like you can purchase your product from a different supplier. If that were the case, I'd be able to play Heroes VI and not have to do business with Ubisoft's Uplay crap. (or Origin for EA games, etc)

Competition doesnt mean that you can exactly copy someone elses designs, just that you can make competing products.
You're essentially upset because you can't buy a Lambo from a Kia dealer.
You can't but Heroes VI, but there are hundreds of other similiar games to choose from.

I think Valve had an agreement for awhile that games using Steam distribution and copyprotection could not include non-Steam versions of copyprotection in alternate versions; ie, DVD versions of the game had to also come with Steam. This seems to have been dropped over time as I believe I have seen examples of games that don't follow this rule.

Consider that I can buy many year old initially $60 games from steam for like $10. Because the game is still being sold, there's still incentive to fix/patch/expand the game.

Roughly speaking, the results were that new game consumers don't pay any more(the new game is slightly cheaper, on average, by about the same amount as what they'd be able to sell it to gamestop for), used game consumers don't pay more, and the studios get more money vs resellers, increasing their profits and encouraging more/bigger games.

Consider that I wanted to buy a game for my wife, but that game was no longer offered for sale because original company went out of business and was sold. Under the no-resale model, I'm SOL. Unless I happen to get lucky and the company that owns a portion of the sold company (they are never sold 100% to a single party) feels like monetizing some IP, and spends the time to collect all of the other IP fragments, and remarket the game, I don't have the option to buy it anymore.

All the pro-DRM people always seem to point to Gamestop as their bugbear. Please, there are legitimate reasons to want to resell a game or regift a game or trade a game, without having Gamestop involved.

With Steam games, they are NOT sold more cheaply than competing games! This keeps being repeated but they're referring to Indie games or olders game. New AAA titles on Steam are still selling in the $50-$60 range, which is not a discount, I've even seen them sold for $40-$50 a year after release if they'r

"Steam has been DRM since before Half-Life 2." Anyone who thinks Steam isn't DRM is an idiot.

With that being said, Steam is the example of "good" DRM. As good as you can get atleast. Sure you can't resell your games, but you can download games you bought any time, on any number of computers without having to dance "Authorize/Deauthorize" dance. It also handles connecting to servers, game saves, friends lists, audio chatting...

Steam is pretty much the ONLY DRM service to get remotely close to right.

Except no, you're full of shit, compromise doesn't have to happen. Humble Bundle games are sold DRM-free. Good Old Games sells all their games DRM-free, including ones that had DRM at initial release and even ones that are brand new, concurrently under sale through other vendors, and are DRMed there. Both of them allow unlimited re-downloading. There are other

Friends lists and audio chat and such have nothing to do with Steam. There's nothing very special about Steam's implementation of those features, eith

the fact that you can just change the name of the thing and claim it to be anything else is why we have laws that define when something is a selling and when it is a rent. When someone pays for something once and gets a lifetime use of the good it is a selling, no matter how you decide to call it.

If it's a rental, Valve is in some hot water, when it comes to software. Because the owner of the rented item has to keep it in usable shape. Thus Valve would be liable for everything their software causes on their client's systems.

Exactly. I have no problem with rulings like this, as long as Valve can be sued for fraud if they use the words 'buy', 'own' or 'purchase' anywhere in their advertising. A quick glance that the Steam web site shows it listing 'Top Sellers' and says 'buy it once, play on Mac, PC or Linux'. If they are not allowing you to buy the game, then this is fraudulent advertising.

Not trying to troll or anything here, but you seem to share a common misunderstanding with the rest of the world. In the hopes of not getting modded down into oblivion, let me try to explain what is going on. And let me be clear that I don't necessarily support this model, I am just the one who risks his karma and dares explain it a bit better...:-)

You do actually buy something - but not "the game" as such. You buy a license. After you have purchased that license, it is yours. You can use it, or leave it idle somewhere, or burn it, or use it as toilet paper. The license does not give you copyright of the product; but you are free to use the license as you see fit, within the restrictions and rights granted to you in that license... and subject to local laws (which in some cases may expand your rights and in some cases limit it further).

This is in line with pretty much every other "license" in life; including licenses not related to software. A license is society's way of grating you certain rights in a limited fashion and it is used for a gazillion things other than software. You can be "licensed" to produce pharmaceuticals. Or fly an airplane in public airspace. Or recycle waste subject to strict environmental laws.Or carry a firearm. Or drive a car!

Since car analogies are the big thing in IT lets stick to that:-) You can "buy" a drivers license from a local driving school, but you are unable to "resell" that to another person, and you are bound by the terms of the license. You can't drive however you please either. You must follow certain ruled and protocols while driving (restricting the use of your car when operating it). If you loose its physical representation (the drivers license plastic/paper card itself) you are still considered to be "licensed" by the issuing state or country. You may get a small ticket for not being able to produce the little card, but that is not the same as "driving without having a drivers license". A drivers license is in many ways (but not all obviously) a good analogy for a software license. Both grant you certain rights but subject to a number of restrictions. Both are "personal" and cannot simply be passed on to other people. Neither of them are "physical"; they are both tied to your person in an immaterial fashion. Any physical object representing them merely serve as easy/convenient proof that you hold a license - the physical object is not the license.

While you have "purchased" your drivers license from the local driving school, that have not engaged in "fraudulent advertising" if they have used the words "buy" or "purchase" or "OMG get your licenze here for peanutz". But roughly the same condition apply to your drivers license as to a software license. There are many restrictions on how you can use the license, and if you give it to another person that does not in fact grant them "a license" to do anything. You are really just handing the proof that you hold a license - the license itself is not transferred. All the other licenses mentioned above follow this pattern as well.

In this sense Valve does not engage in "fraudulent advertising" because it is well understood that they sell licenses, not complete copyrights for software products. Or in other words: You buy a right to use the software in a limited way, you do not buy the complete copyright and full intellectual property. And giving your license to someone is really noting more than handing them proof that you are the rightful user of said license. The license itself is not transferred.

We may not like the way these things work, but that is an entirely different story.

It is fraudulent advertising because they say "purchase the game today!", not "purchase a license of this game today!"

Anyway, simply agreeing to a license doesn't mean you understand it, and if you don't understand it, it should not apply. Most people don't understand to what they are agreeing. EULAs should require a lawyer who can explain all possible ramifications of the EULA and it should require the publisher, lawyer, and end user to sign for it to be valid. Otherwise it's just another way to abuse pe

Agree they should be required to prominently display that you're buying a non-transferable license - transferability is a traditional aspect of software, if you're removing it you should have to mention that fact prominently.

But being able to duck out of a contract because you didn't understand it? No. That would completely undermine the integrity of contract law. If you don't understand a contract you either refuse to accept it, get a lawyer to translate, or accept the consequences of your own stupidity

In this sense Valve does not engage in "fraudulent advertising" because it is well understood that they sell licenses, not complete copyrights for software products. Or in other words: You buy a right to use the software in a limited way, you do not buy the complete copyright and full intellectual property. And giving your license to someone is really noting more than handing them proof that you are the rightful user of said license. The license itself is not transferred.

This is the standard hypocritical bullshit that the copyright cartels try to push. They want copyrighted materials to be treated as a purchase, when it comes to their own obligations, but they want it to be treated as a license contract when it comes to your rights. So they get to "sell" you "products" (after which they have minimal responsibility for ensuring that the product continues to work, etc.), but they can revoke or modify your "license" and they restrict how you use it (including prohibition on re

Very well stated, and may apply in Germany. But in the US, you need to look how our copyright is designed.

You do actually buy something - but not "the game" as such. You buy a license. After you have purchased that license, it is yours.

You buy a copy of the game, just as we have bought copies of books and music sheets. That didn't give us the right to make more copies, because that right to copy (with limitations) was reserved to the copyright holder. But it did give us various rights concerning the copy we

I'm just waiting for other industries to start realizing the brilliance of licensing something instead of selling it. Imagine "buying" a house, when in reality all you did was obtain a license to use a copy of a house design. You might own the land the house is on. You can sell the land, but the license for the house is non-transferable. Except maybe under specific conditions stipulated in the license (which probably involves a transfer of money to the home builder or whomever owns the "copyright" on th

A shame you posted as AC, I would have gladly engaged in that debate with you.:-)

I don't think those two are really mutually exclusive, because the poster I replied to by all probability already knows and understands this but chooses to ignore that knowledge. I am confident the poster is well aware of how licenses work, but actively chooses to ignore that knowledge in order to - at the same time - claim that using the words "buy" or "sell" is akin to fraudulent advertising. This creates the inner conflict

It is quite common in other languages to use the words "buy" or "purchase" in the context of the services provided by a driving school.

It is also (at least in other languages) possible for young people to "get a drivers license as a gift" at their 16th or 18th birthday; yet nobody takes this as a sign that the giver of such gift (parents usually) are actually the ones issuing the license. For example, a youngster may say "I got a drivers license from my da

Most people - including you I suspect - understand the concept of software licenses, and understand that when they are "buying a game" they are buying the ability to use/play that game, but not the full rights to the game itself.

When you "buy" a physical DVD in a store you also don't "buy" the movie, there are many many restrictions put on a DVD sold for private use. You can't pay 10 bucks for a DVD and then use that to legally sell 100 more.

I am pretty sure the driver of a taxi needs to have a special license to drive with passengers in a commercial capacity; not just a standard drivers license.

You may have the ability to transfer the vehicles license to be used as a taxi (which is really just a monopoly enforced by local organizations and created by lobbyists hundreds of years ago) but you can't transfer the drivers license to commercially transport passengers. He/she will need to get that by other means; separately from the vehicles license

Well, it's a confusing market right at the moment. I used to run a web-based computer game, and out of uneasiness with the term "buy" for digital goods I asked players to "donate" in return for which they'd get a thank-you gift. I treated every transaction as a purchase, but I didn't want to imply they had ownership of the digital goods. One of the merchants I used (Amazon) had a serious problem with this wording because they were convinced I was running an unregistered charity, based entirely on the word d

You are implying that everyone on/. is either American or German? Now that's a wild assumption. I think you forgot that there are approximately 195 other nations on this planet, a sizable fraction of which have sizable populations able to converse in English (albeit perhaps with some mistakes, which I'm SURE native speakers also do).

You are implying that everyone on/. is either American or German? Now that's a wild assumption. I think you forgot that there are approximately 195 other nations on this planet, a sizable fraction of which have sizable populations able to converse in English (albeit perhaps with some mistakes, which I'm SURE native speakers also do).

Whoa, a little defensive there, aren't you mate? There was no implication that everyone on/. is either American or German, and no slight in the GP's post against the other 193 countries. The poster said he wasn't German, and the GP who apparently is American, noted that the description of the GGP as "in mid 20th" is not a common American phrasing. So he was, in fact, deducing the poster was neither American or German and asking which of the OTHER 193 countries was that person's home.

You can "buy" a license to drive a car from your local driving school, but you cannot give that license to another person and by that action grant them the legal right to operate a car. They need to go get their own license, subject to many restrictions, and issued by an organization which has the "monopoly" for issuing such licenses in your regtion.

The whole argument is really a question of whether you're "renting" or "buying", not what you can do with it after. And it's hard to "buy" a copyrighted work of any kind without buying the FULL rights, which include the right to redistribute (i.e. selling the game as your own).

Games, movies, books are much closer to "renting" rights than an outright purchase. It's like trying to "sell" your leased car. The people with the lease agreement with you will come looki